Thaaat's not very much free time, but she's been on mission trips that were roughly that constrained, and she survived them. They were only a week long and they were hard and they drained her but she's gonna try not to think about that. If she gets desperate she can always lie awake for a couple hours at night or something.

She sets the room's alarm clock for tomorrow and checks how much quiet time she has left.

Serena allotted fifteen minutes for daily quiet time!

That's not very much but she has what she has. She scribbles a prayer in her journal in very very tiny letters, three lines to a line (she has no idea what her paper supply is going to look like). She cracks open the Bible and checks on Habakkuk where she left him, that seems like an appropriate quiet time activity.

For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwellingplaces that are not theirs.

They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves.

Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat.

They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand.

Fun times. This sure is gonna be a day, isn't it.

She shuts her Bible and heads downstairs.

Then she can help make bacon and eggs for breakfast!

She can do this! She hasn't made bacon and eggs before but she's sure she can figure it out given proper guidance.

As she cracks the eggs, Serena says, "the Coopers down the street also have a new Handmaid, Emily. Would you like to run errands with her this morning?"

"Sure, I'd love to." She has no idea what other sorts of people end up becoming handmaids and she's a little scared to find out, but that seems terribly hypocritical at this point.

"Do you think you will be able to grocery shop on your own with Emily, or should I accompany you?"

"Oh, uh - I'm sure I can do grocery shopping if I'm given a list? I'm a little worried about getting lost on the way, I haven't been there before, but if Emily has then hopefully that will be fine? But a map might be good anyway."

"I understand why they don't let Handmaids have phones, but it is not a realistic simulation of what being married is actually like and makes things very difficult for the host families."

- oh are they supposed to be simulating marriage. Right. Yes. They're going to marry her off after this to someone who believes what they believe, that's the only way out. Don't think about how terrifying that is.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. I'm afraid I don't have a very good sense of direction on my own."

"That's quite all right, I'll make you a map and I'm sure Emily will have an excellent sense of direction."

"Thank you, ma'am."

Time passes!

Serena Joy is tough, but fair and patient, and she never asks Keturah to do something she wouldn't do. If Keturah is competent at something, she backs off; if Keturah is unskilled, she shows Keturah again and again. Keturah's days consist of prayer, tutoring refugees, cleaning, cooking, and studying theology and Greek. 

The time for the Ceremony approaches. 

Every time he sees her, Nick stares at her emotionlessly.

Fred occasionally wins at Narnia Stratego!

Keturah reads more of the minor prophets and tries to be the sort of person she can be proud of. She's not entirely sure how to do this. If the only thing she has to do is endure, just keep existing, then she can do that, sure. If she has to avoid condoning sin no matter what, then -

If she refuses to participate in the ceremony, they'll take her to prison and impregnate her there. Nothing will have been accomplished. But if you're trying to be your best self, then you can't go along with the demands of evil, even when you don't have the strength to stop evil from hurting you for it.

She doesn't want to go to prison. She doesn't want to go to hell. She doesn't want to have to face her creator and tell Him that she knew what the right thing to do was, and she gave up on doing it because it sounded scary and she liked having the chance to study Greek. But it is scary, and she spends the days leading up to the ceremony having frequent crying fits and making herself sick with fear.

"You look sad."

She stops listlessly hand-washing dishes in the sink.

"...I don't think I can do this."

"Everyone is scared, their first Ceremony. It's okay. You can get through it."

Better take a deep breath and get this over with.

"No, I mean - I mean - I mean I think that surrogacy is wrong, and that forcing people into surrogacy is even more wrong, and that - that bowing to pressure to willingly defy God, even at peril of one's freedom, even at peril of one's life, is - there is a reason the early Church was so inspired by the stories of young women who refused to deny their faith and bear the children of Roman officials, even when it cost them their lives. And I just - maybe I've gotten it all mixed up and I'm inventing reasons why I shouldn't have to do any of this, but - I'm afraid of the ceremony, yes, and I'm more afraid of prison. But I'm even more afraid of being complicit in sin."

Good! Good. Now she just has to wait for the internal screaming to stop.

"Have you been doing your Bible study to help you understand why surrogacy is God's plan for us?"

"Oh yeah! Totally. I just think you're - uh - wrong."

"I do believe that surrogacy is God's plan for fertile and unmarried women, but I don't want to force you to do something that goes against the stirrings of your conscience... I can't imagine that would be helpful to your rehabilitation."

That sounds better than immediately getting sent to prison and having to do it anyway!

"Oh. So. Uh. Then what?"